


The Unexpected Ending

by loves_books



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Serious Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sosa finds a unexpected guest on her doorstep one cold, wet night</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unexpected Ending

**Author's Note:**

> Please take note of the warnings above before reading. Nothing graphic I promise, and mostly off-screen. But still, please take note.

The unexpected knock on her door comes just after midnight on a cold, rainy Washington DC night. She had been in bed already, reading over reports before a meeting in the morning, but there is some note of urgency to the knock that makes her hurry down the stairs of her townhouse and throw open the door, gun concealed behind her back.

Standing on her doorstep is the last person she had expected. Templeton Peck is shivering, soaked to the skin through his several layers of clothes, one small bag at his side, and quickly she ushers him inside.

“You can’t be here,” she says, even as she starts trying to peel off his outer jacket.

“I know,” he says, normally smooth voice rough and shaky. “Nowhere else I could… I’m sorry…”

Hushing him, she continues to strip him, tossing the saturated clothes to the wooden floor. He is shaking so hard it scares her a little.

“What happened?”

“Decker got too close.” She’s been off their case for months; hopefully her house isn’t being watched anymore. “We had to split, my safe house wasn’t safe, I… I didn’t have anywhere else to go…”

She presses her hand to his forehead and isn’t entirely surprised to feel the heat of a fever underneath the cold and wet from the weather. Working swiftly, she bundles him upstairs and into her bathroom, stripping him of his final sodden layers as she does so.

The first thing that strikes her is how much weight he has lost, how much muscle has melted away. She can’t hide her gasp of shock, though he is shaky and weak on his feet and barely notices.

One warm shower later – not too warm, her worries about his fever overriding his shivering form even as he leans heavily on her – and she bundles him into her bed, naked beneath her covers.

He is barely with it, delirium starting to set in, although he recognises her and seems to know he is safe at least. She is ridiculously pleased he made it to her house at all. He is in no shape to have scammed a new safe house.

“Here.” She makes him sit up enough to take three Tylenol and sip some water, then settles him back into the pillows, a cool washcloth folded on his forehead. “You’re okay now.”

“Charissa.” His voice is weak, blue eyes a little cloudy as he manages to focus on her. “I really am sorry.”

“You’re safe,” she tells him. “But you’re sick, sweetheart. I’m gonna take care of you.” She can’t believe Hannibal would leave him like this.

“I’m sick,” he repeats, lifting his head a little and looking around. “My bag, pills…”

His bag is still downstairs, and she doesn’t want to leave him to fetch it. Before long he is asleep, or unconscious, and he stays that way for three long days and nights, tossing and turning, burning up.

She has to leave him alone the first morning, only long enough to go into work and fake getting sick enough to be sent home. She might not be on the team searching for the A-Team any more, but she knows how suspicious it would look if she phoned in sick the morning after a massive man-hunt.

No one searches her house. No one even questions her. She hears on the grapevine that none of the others were captured, three teams still chasing them across country. But right now all her attention is focussed on the sick man lying in her bed.

For three days he burns up, waking long enough for her to cram pills and water down his throat, calling for Hannibal in his delirium. As she runs cool cloths repeatedly over his now-skinny body, she finds her worry only grows.

But she doesn’t dare call a doctor.

She goes through the small bag he had, and is surprised to find, amongst the obvious things such as a change of clothes and a cheap mobile phone, several bottles of pills, all different sizes. None of the bottles have labels and she doesn’t dare try to give him any, keeping them close in case he wakes enough for her to ask.

She has too many hours alone to fret, to observe just how ill he really looks, even discounting the fever which causes his body to shake. Where he once had broad, muscular shoulders, now he seems smaller somehow. She can trace the outline of his ribs, and his hipbones jut out sharply from his slender waist. 

The phone from his bag is damaged beyond all use, no numbers saved to the memory card, no way for her to contact Hannibal. In his delirium, Face calls for him repeatedly, fever-bright eyes locking onto hers as he insists, “He’ll come for me, he’ll find me…”

After three days and nights of gentle care, his fever final breaks, and she sits on the edge of his bed – her bed – spooning soup into his mouth. His eyes are clear now, though he is exhausted, and he asks for his pills. She helps him open the little bottles and watches as he takes five different pills, not daring to ask.

He hasn’t been hers for a long time. She broke his heart, she can see that now, with the power of hindsight. But she still cares for him greatly, and seeing him like this…

“I’m sorry,” he tells her again, flopping back into the pillows, little lines of pain near his eyes starting to ease. And he tells her more about the job they were doing, how it all fell apart so quickly.

How Hannibal will come for him. How he just couldn’t run any longer. “He’ll come when it’s safe,” he repeats, exhaustion clear in his voice, arms wrapped tightly around his stomach.

“Face…” With one look from her he sags a little, his eyes drifting to the little bottles on the bedside table.

And he tells her, how they’d found out too late. How he’d seen five different specialists, used three different false identities. How they’d all said the same thing. Too advanced, too aggressive. Months maybe, if he’s lucky.

“Chemotherapy or radiotherapy might have bought me a little more time, but…”

She nods slowly, blinking through her tears. He wouldn’t want to be in a hospital, wouldn’t have handled treatment well. “Do they know why, how - ?”

“It’s no one’s fault.” His eyes are closed now, sleep pulling him under once more. “Genetics, maybe. But I’ve got no family history, no known risk factors…”

She sits for a long time, holding his hand, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Life really isn’t fair sometimes.

He stays with her for nearly four weeks in the end. After those first few difficult days, he gets some of his strength back, is almost his normal self apart from the dramatic weight-loss. He has little appetite, she realises, and he tires easily, but the array of pills he takes seem to keep the worst of the pain at bay.

She has to go back to work, and she tracks Decker’s search as subtly as she can. Neither Hannibal, Murdock or BA have been caught, though all three are still running. None of them answer their phones when Face calls, and she can see how tense he is as he waits for news.

She can only imagine what the others are going through, especially Hannibal, who is apparently the only one who knows how serious Face’s illness really is. And who also happens to be Face’s lover.

She likes to take a little credit for them finally getting together. After she broke up with Face – broke his heart – she’d watched from afar as the two of them edged closer and closer together. She’d always known there was something more than just friendship between Colonel and Lieutenant. After their second escape from custody, nearly two years ago now, it seemed they had finally fallen into bed together.

In their early days on the run, she had helped where and when she could, still technically leading the hunt for the escaped team. She saw them infrequently, and Face had thrown his new relationship at her during one particularly tense argument. She knows she had surprised him by simply kissing his cheek and wishing them well, all the anger draining away.

Now, she watches as he waits. As the weeks pass, he sleeps for longer and more often, stomach pains growing worse, back pain he can’t hide, and a limp developing. They’d told him it had already spread to his bones, apparently, and she tries to hide her distress as he grows weaker.

She knows he doesn’t want to be here, knows he doesn’t want her to see him like this. She doesn’t take it personally. God knows she doesn’t want to see him like this either. But he has nowhere to go, still waiting for Hannibal.

Finally, he comes. Unannounced and unexpected, of course, just stood in the middle of her living room late one night, cast in stark shadows. He’s lucky she didn’t shoot him.

“Is he here? Is he okay?” Hannibal’s voice is hoarse, tired. Almost scared.

“He’s here,” she tells him, then wonders if she imagines the way his shoulders sag in relief. “He’s far from okay.”

Hannibal sinks into a chair, head in his hands. After a moment, she puts down her gun and sits opposite him. “Thank you,” he breathes.

“For what?” She isn’t feeling generous towards the former Colonel right now, not having seen what Face has gone through waiting for him.

“For taking him in. I couldn’t shake them off, I tried… I didn’t want to risk…”

She’s never heard this man lost for words, and her heart softens just a little. “You should’ve called.”

“Your phones are tapped. I’m surprised they aren’t still watching your house.” Hannibal looks up then, pale blue eyes bloodshot. “How is he, really?”

She tells him everything, honestly, knowing he needs the truth. She doesn’t sugar-coat anything. “He’s asleep,” she finishes, hating the quiver in her voice.

Hannibal nods, standing up. “I need to see him. We’ll be gone by morning,” he tells her.

“There really isn’t anything they can do?”

“No. They could buy him a few more months, but he’d spend them in the hospital. He doesn’t want that. Doesn’t want to risk going back to jail.” For a moment, Hannibal’s face crumbles and she sees how much this is breaking his heart. But then that mask is back up, the Colonel taking over. “I’ll do whatever he asks of me, anything he wants.”

And Hannibal disappears upstairs to his ailing lover, leaving her alone in the darkness of her living room.

As Hannibal promised, they leave in the grey light of dawn. She watches as he carries Face down the stairs, his lover’s skinny form swaddled in blankets. Face lets his head rest against Hannibal’s neck, a tiny smile on his cracked lips, and she smiles herself as Hannibal settles him into the front seat of his car.

The former-Colonel steps away from them with a nod, giving her one final moment with Face. What can she possibly say at a time like this, she wonders, but Face just offers one of his blindingly bright smiles, telling her thanks.

Then they are hugging, for what seems an eternity, though she can’t miss the weakness in his embrace nor the tremors that wrack his body.

“Thank you,” he whispers in her ear. “For everything, always.”

Tightening her grip one last time, she pulls back enough to kiss him chastely on the lips. “I’ll always love you,” she tells him honestly, and she will, as a dear friend.

All too soon they are gone, the sun not even fully over the horizon. She sits on her sofa, watching as the room gradually grows lighter, before the time comes when she must get ready for work. Life must go on, as impossible as that seems.

She doesn’t see either of them again. She hears Decker has lost their trail, and hopes that the four of them have managed to find each other again. That Face has the chance to see his two brothers.

Then she pushes it to the back of her mind and just carries on. Work, promotion. New boyfriend.

A letter lands on her mat one morning, nearly three months later. Handwritten, with a Californian postmark. Her hands shake as she tears it carefully open.

She recognises Hannibal’s neat handwriting at once. The tears finally begin to fall as she reads his short note.

Sunday morning, 6.15am. In my arms. At peace. JHS.


End file.
